[edheil]

This is the biggest thing that didn't quite seem to be spelled out in the rules:

"The Antag is the sum of all forces arrayed against the Protag. The Antagonist player is free to play all the forces the Antag represents; if the Antag is "Jill's uncle who wants her to go mad", the Antag is going to be playing the Uncle, when appropriate; the Hallucinations when she's hallucinating; the talking mayonnaise jar who tells her she's sane; the bumbling brain surgeon. Etc. "

I mean, it kind of *has* to be that way, since in any given conflict the Antagonist gets input into it. But in the rules we get:

"If you’re playing an Antagonist, decide which Scale is most appro-
priate to the actions of the character you’re playing. Draw on the
Features the Antagonist already has — characters, intentions,
resources — to dictate how the Conflict will be pushed. Then reduce
the number of Credits remaining by the number of dice you are to
roll, with a maximum of ten."

That sounds like the Antagonist is supposed to be using the antagonist *character* he made, specifically, to oppose the Protag.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're doing when you make the antagonist character sheet -- maybe you are indeed creating "the sum total of forces against the character" there and not just the character who is the focal point of them?

"Antagonists are built out of Praxis Scales, Features, and Credits
only — they don’t have Links. Set the Fulcra the way you like for
your Antagonist. The first Feature the Antagonist has should be
the name of the character or institution that the Protagonist has
given you. After that, Features might be an army of robot assassins,
supporting characters, control over a computer network, or other
tools. Remember that the actions of an Antagonist are always moti-
vated by intention, though: if there’s a storm, the Antagonist is the
character locking the Protagonist out of the storm shelter, or it’s
the character who controls the Weather Machine, not the natural,
uncaring phenomenon itself"

I'd understood that the Antagonist *was* that one focal character suggested by the protagonist, and the other Features were the Features that focal character had. Just like a Protagonist.

But perhaps the term Antagonist does not designate the focal antagonistic character, as the term Protagonist designates the focal protagonistic character, but on the contrary, the term Antagonist designates "the sum of all forces arrayed against the Protag". If so this is a confusing asymmetry, and it seems to be directly contradicted by the sidebar that describes both Protagonist and Antagonist as "a character who matters."

So what's the deal? Is the sidebar wrong, and the Antagonist is a sum of all forces of which the focal antagonistic character is merely the most salient Feature? Or is the Antagonist really that character, but it also happens to be the job of the Antagonist's player to play other forces arrayed against the Protagonist (and coincidentally play them using Fulcra and Trait dice that come from that focal character)?

What does the term "Antagonist" designate?

I think I've grokked how the Antagonist player plays (with one focal character and also playing other forces), but I'm wondering how you meant the term in the first place....